


Etiquette

by toujours_nigel



Category: Alexander Trilogy - Renault
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's smaller than me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Etiquette

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Этикет](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2550008) by [krasnoe_solnishko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krasnoe_solnishko/pseuds/krasnoe_solnishko)



“How dare you treat him like that?” His father is a tall man, and very dreadful to face in one of his infrequent rages. “How dare you?”

 

“I…” he had not been doing anything wrong. “He couldn’t tighten his belt…”

 

“So you decided to do it for him.”

 

“He’s your son, Amyntor,” his mother smiles, laying a hand on his shoulder. He looks up—his father’s face has lost some its thunder; he risks a smile.

 

“And then you fought over it.” There is enough left, though, to darken his brows.

 

He shrinks back, just a little, into his mother’s welcoming flesh. “No. He…” There’s no way to say this right, but his father is already angry with him anyway. “He cursed at me,” he says, voice high and excited. “He knows so many words.”

 

He can feel his mother’s stifled laughter rolling through his body from its contact with hers. His father stops, mid-pace, and turns, face incredulous for a moment. Up goes one bronze eyebrow. “Prince Alexander cursed at you?” Amyntor says, voice dry enough to catch flame.

 

He nods, head bobbing. So many words that he had never heard. “We weren’t fighting,” he says, the break in his father’s manner prompting him to protest innocence.

 

“Because he impressed you,” his father smiles. “Don’t pull tricks with me, Phai.” Old baby-name, love-name, and he’s too old to be called that—eight, almost. “He is your prince and you must respect him.” A small, secret smile. “You can’t call him names, Phai; you must give him his title and his dues.”

 

That does it. “You pay King Philip no respect,” he bawls, spoilt, stubborn child who has never felt his father’s anger without accompanying showers of affection. “You never give him his title.” He doesn’t; King Philip has come to their house, and played with him, and dined with his father, and not one ‘my lord King’ has crossed his father’s lips. Ever.

 

Amyntor stares at him, sizing him up—the first time they’ve clashed on anything other than toys and indulgences. "You’re right,” he says, face an immobile mask—an expression Hephaistion is yet to master, “but I have earned that right and paid for it blood and battles. You have not.”

 

“But he’s smaller than me,” he says, petulant—size trumps logic still, in his world.

 

His father smiles at him—an adult’s smile, and one he dislikes already, as he does all assumptions that he is too young to understand things, if they are explained well. “That matters not at all, Hephaistion.”

 

“Perhaps,” his mother says, moving away from him as she has not since his father brought him home, “you should not take him to court again, Amyntor.”

 

“Perhaps,” his father agrees. “Though Philip had said… No, it is better to leave him at home. At least till he becomes human.”

 

He glowers, unable to help it. It isn’t a punishment that matters. He really hadn’t wanted to go play with Prince Alexander. Not if he has to respect a boy who is smaller than him. And weaker, doubtless, for all his store of curses.

 

But he hadn’t been doing anything wrong, and that rankles.

 It isn’t fair.


End file.
